The Internet has significantly changed the world in many aspects. For instance, like other industries, the economic development industry has become a big beneficiary of the growth of the Internet. Economic development and public policy professionals' effective participation in the information age is a necessity. In order to be effective, these professionals need technology tools which deliver value and insight.
Not surprisingly, there are websites available for providing various features: websites that allow users to search for available sites or properties; websites that provide demographic data to users; and websites that provide business mapping. None of those websites, however, integrate all of these features into one website with local and national geographic information systems (hereinafter “GIS”) data from multiple government sources and organizations.
Organizations and professionals not using online GIS find themselves at a competitive disadvantage when they are trying to create, grow, attract or retain businesses. Economic development organizations, municipalities, regions, and States are in dire need of marketing themselves to expanding and relocating businesses via an interactive Internet GIS to provide site-specific and detailed demographic and industry information. To this end, there is as ever increasing need for one portal website that would integrate local websites which have additional and detailed local GIS data, multiple organizations' local real estate, demographic, business database, and GIS into an integrated, portal website.
In addition, there is a need for a method of using the website for searching communities based on community and geographic characteristics. The related art does not disclose or suggest integration of all of those features disclosed therein in one portal website having local GIS data from multiple sources such as government sources. There is, therefore, substantial interest in the creation of a website which links to local websites for local demographic and business information, and provides such data to website users.